PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN IN FORT NEGLEY AT NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE, SHOWING IRONCLAD CASEMATES, IN 1864
IN the closing months of 1864 events occurred in rapid succession in the southwest. The Confederates, under Hood, driven from Georgia by Sherman, invaded Middle Tennessee. General Price began his invasion of Missouri and destroyed property valued at three millions of dollars and seized a vast quantity of supplies. The Union forces, under General Thomas, were concentrated at Nashville. There were continual skirmishes and at nightfall, on the sixteenth of December, General Thomas ordered his troops into line of battle, with the intent of driving Hood's Army from the territory. In a terrific fire of musketry, grape and canister, the Federals pushed forward. In the next two days the Confederates lost all their artillery. General Thomas took four thousand, five hundred prisoners, nearly three hundred being officers. The fleeing Confederate columns left nearly three thousand dead and wounded on the ground, while the Federal loss was three hundred. The weather was very cold, but Thomas pursued his foe relentlessly. Flood's men were in a desperate condition, barefooted, ragged and disheartened. They were pressed to the Tennessee River where thirteen thousand were taken prisoners, and Hood's great army was practically annihilated, their small arms scattered along the roads, and cannon, caissons and wagons abandoned. Hood took the remnants of his army into Mississippi where he was relieved from command by his own request and retired minus the arm he left at Gettysburg and the leg he left at Chickamauga. On the thirtieth day of December, in 1864, Thomas went into winter quarters. One of the last photographs of the year was taken in Fort Negley, Nashville, Tennessee, showing the ironclad casemates and the interior of the fort.
PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN ON GRANT'S MILITARY RAILROAD WHEN THE 13-INCH MORTAR "DICTATOR" OR "PETERSBURG EXPRESS" WAS THROWING SHELLS INTO PETERSBURG IN 1864
THE last days of 1864 closed with the Army of the Potomac and the Army of the James maintaining the siege about Petersburg. Nearly every hour of the day and night the air was filled with the roar of siege cannons and mortars. Brady and Gardner had several of their cameras at the siege of Petersburg. Many rare negatives are to-day witnesses of this great event. The picture shown on this page was taken during the siege. It shows the thirteen-inch "Dictator," known as the "Petersburg Express," mounted on a flat freight car made strong for this purpose. It was on the military railroad outside of Petersburg and moved continually along the line, throwing its huge death-dealing bombs into the city. Some of the mortars were mounted on very strong, special-made cars, protected with roofs of railroad iron. Grant's line was twenty-five miles long, but with its parallels extending over ninety miles. The two forts nearest the city of Petersburg were known by the soldiers as Fort Hell and Fort Damnation. From their casemates the movements of the soldiers of the beleaguered city were distinctly visible. The guns of these two advanced forts were never silent. At nightfall, the pickets, with one hundred and fifty rounds of ball cartridges, left for the outposts, and many of them never returned. The night was made hideous by the roar of huge siege guns, the sudden crashes of musketry and the crack of rifle shells. The openings of the breastworks were so filled with shot during this siege that in time of truce the soldiers would dig the narrow openings out with their fingers. On the next page is shown a photograph taken April 2, 1865, in Confederate trenches at Petersburg just after their capture by the daring Union troops.
